When Angelo Chol first arrived at Arizona, the media relations department listed his hometown as Khartoum, Sudan, where he was born. Chol politely asked them to change it, to San Diego.

And when 52 teams called after he announced his intention to transfer last week, including several that made the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16, the 6-foot-9 sophomore forward quickly narrowed his list to one. He visited San Diego State on Tuesday. He orally committed on Wednesday.

“Angelo had a lot of success here,” said Ollie Goulston, his coach at Hoover High. “He wants to get back to that foundation of success. Why look elsewhere if everything he’s looking for is right here?

“The opportunity to get better and come home was too good to pass up.”

Chol, who doesn’t turn 20 until July, will have two years of eligibility remaining after sitting out next season. But already the prospect of him pairing inside with Skylar Spencer, who’d also be a junior in 2014-15, is tantalizing: Both rate among the best shot blockers on the West Coast.

SDSU offered familiarity, certainly – a chance to play two miles from where he went to high school, a chance to reconnect with an extensive support network for the Sudanese immigrant community here. There’s the veteran Aztecs coaching staff and regular trips to the NCAA Tournament and Coach Steve Fisher’s high-post offense that is built for long, athletic big men.

But the word Chol kept using was “opportunity.”

“I feel like there are opportunities there for me,” he said.

Chol chose Arizona over North Carolina, Kansas, Washington and Alabama, and he played 22 and 23 minutes in his first two games there. But he played more than that only once since, stuck behind a 2013 recruiting class that included three big-time big men that Coach Sean Miller was compelled to put on the floor given the political blowback of benching a five-star prospect.

Chol’s minutes shrank from 12.2 as a freshman to 8.5 as a sophomore. By this last postseason, he played 10 total minutes in five games (two in the Pac-12 Tournament, three in the NCAA Tournament).

He was one of the first players off Arizona’s bench in the Dec. 25 final of the Diamond Head Classic against SDSU. But after surrendering a dunk on a botched defensive rotation, Miller angrily called timeout, screamed at Chol as he walked to the bench and subbed him out. Chol never got back in.

“Nothing against Coach Miller, I have a lot of respect for him,” Chol said, “but at the same time it was hard. I felt like I had to keep looking over my shoulder, keep looking at the bench every time I did something to see if I would get subbed out.

“It wasn’t a fun way to play. I want to be comfortable when I’m out there. I was never able to get into a rhythm. You can’t do much in eight minutes per game.”

Fisher has a history of taking the opposite approach, using regular minutes – as frustrating as it can be for fans at times – to build confidence and poise. It was something not lost on Chol, who grew up in the shadow of the program and said he’s knows “how Coach Fisher operates.”

Goulston put it like this: “It’s like a running back who gets better with more carries. Angelo plays better the more minutes he gets. He’s not a guy who works well in three- to six-minute stretches, where you’re just in and out of the lineup.”

Chol said he plans to enroll in the first session of summer school that begins later this month. That allows him to work out with the SDSU coaches and his new teammates.

But he already knows Viejas Arena well. He’s undefeated there, winning the San Diego Section Division II title at Viejas as a freshman at Hoover.

“I felt like Arizona was the right place for me after high school,” Chol said. “I have no regrets. I felt it was a learning experience. I learned a lot and I got better … But I’ve lived here most of my life. It means a lot to play for my hometown, to spend my last two years (of college) being an Aztec.”

Notes

The annual Aztec Spring Caravan comes to Randy Jones All-American Grill in Mission Valley on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Fisher is expected to attend, along with football coach Rocky Long and athletic director Jim Sterk. The cost is $20. The event will also be held at the Lumberyard Tavern and Grill in Encinitas on June 20 …

The SDSU Women’s Football Academy, a one-day primer on the sport, is Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Fowler Athletics Hall of Fame. Aztecs assistant coach Brian Sipe, a former NFL quarterback, leads the instructional drills, film session and scrimmage. The cost is $15 and registration begins at 8 a.m.